Dear LPG readers,

I have asked LPG if they would be good enough to post a link to a list that I found on the internet recently which got me thinking a little about the health of our nation and the National Health Service.

I wonder if I am the only person that finds it ironic when thinking of the way that our National Health Service treats us these days.

I wonder if I am the only reader who remembers when our health service was the envy of the world.  We all paid for it and it served us well.  When one was worried about one’s health, one went to visit a doctor who knew who you were and all about your problems.

There was no need to be outside the surgery in the cold at eight in the morning in the hope of getting an appointment and the doctor had time to talk to you about your whole body; you were not limited or ever told that you could only talk about one ailment.  The doctor did not spend half of your consultation time reading notes from a computer and if you were ill you would expect to be seen on the day you felt ill not up to a week later.  No one worried about going to the local hospital A&E, or calling an ambulance when they felt they might need one, for fear of being told they had wasted professional time. The doctor would not be at the other end of a telephone or computer screen and there would be someone available to visit you if you were young, or old and fell really ill during the night.  I also can’t help but find it really worrying when I think of all the hospitals which are no longer there.  

Perhaps the saddest thing of all is that, in spite of all the medical scientific breakthroughs that we constantly hear about on the news, it is also so apparent that many people who would benefit from being treated with them will never get the opportunity because of the financial limitations that all too often also become headline news.

I know that it has been said before, and will be said many more times, but it appears to me that the NHS is just one example, of so many of the positive factors that made our country such a good place to live, but where, at present, standards continue to rise while accessibility is dropping. 

AM, Forest Hill

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